360XQ Day 30: Farewell, XQ

Four full weeks, one new play, and 25 blog posts. Today I depart from Chapala and return home.

During my time here, I’ve written about a lot of different things: the progress on my play, my wanderings through the town, and a whole neurotic string of entries about technology+playwriting.

Some of these posts may seem trivial or off-topic. Some may be more entertaining than others, or more relevant, or more or less insightful. That’s fine with me.

Without this time to reflect, to set my own schedule, and to just focus on writing, none of it would have happened.

Just publish

I think it’s easy to get so invested in writing that it becomes very, very precious.

With something like playwriting, it seems particularly bad. People spend years and years and years working on plays before they ever — if ever — see a production. We edit and rewrite, we submit the pieces to festivals and workshops. We have staged readings. And more staged readings. And more staged readings.

And along the way, we receive notes and opinions on how it can be improved. It seems, often, like a play is never ready to actually come to life.

This is one of the many reasons I love working with Living Room Playmakers. We partner with our venue, and set a performance date, usually before we even begin writing. And when that date comes? We have to be ready.

I’ve tried to take that mindset with these blog posts. Even on days in which I didn’t feel particularly inspired, I forced myself to write SOMETHING. More importantly, I forced myself to click “publish.”

And then it’s out there.

Thank you

I am extremely grateful to the team here at 360 Xochi Quetzal. They’ve given me a really unique opportunity to briefly exist in a new place, and to prioritize my work. They have been kind and generous, and I can tell that they truly care about this residency, and truly value us, the artists they’ve welcomed to their town.

Without this time and support, I’d still be outlining my play. Instead, I have a full draft to take into the new year.

Special thanks to Jessy Lauren Smith, who alerted me to this residency in the first place. She is a wise and thoughtful person.

If you are a writer, a visual artist, a musician, or any type of creative artist, I highly recommend applying to 360XQ. Chapala is beautiful. The house is beautiful. The people are beautiful.

The work I did here? Some of it is beautiful. But some of it is rough. Some of it is sort of strange, and some of it is maybe even a little ugly.